Colorado coal production — hobbled by mine closures and a weak market — slipped to a 20-year low in 2014, according to state data. The state’s eight mines produced just under 23 million tons of coal in 2014, a 5 percent drop from 2013.

Colorado coal production is down 39 percent in the last 10 years.

There was also a nearly 20 percent cut in mining jobs to 1,512 in 2014, according to the state Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety.

The loss of 345 mining jobs in 2014 followed a cut of more than 150 jobs in 2013.

“For the state, it doesn’t amount to much. But for Western Slope communities, it is big,” said Martin Shields, director of the Regional Economic Institute at Colorado State University. “These are well-paying jobs — an average of $80,000 — in places where good jobs are scarce.”

Still, regulatory changes may also make coal less attractive, said Harrison Fell, a Colorado School of Mines economist.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has issued new regulations to limit the amount of mercury — a dangerous heavy metal — that power plants can emit.

The EPA is also drafting rules requiring power plants to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas linked to global climate change. Burning coal creates almost twice as much carbon dioxide as natural gas, according to federal figures.

“Coal is getting squeezed by the market and by regulation,” Fell said.

Part of the Colorado decline is due to operating problems. The Elk Creek Mine in Somerset was closed in December 2013, after underground fires made the mine too dangerous for miners.

In 2012, before the fires, the mine produced 2.9 million tons of coal, and, in 2013, 436,383 tons, according to state data. In 2014, no coal was mined.

Louisville, Ky.-based Bowie Resource Partners LLC announced in October that it was laying off 150 miners and cutting production at its Bowie No. 2 mine near Paonia.

Those cuts were the result of the termination of a contract to supply coal to the Tennessee Valley Authority and weakness in the regional market, the company said in a statement.

The 150 layoffs represented 40 percent of the mine’s workforce of 355.

Production at the mine dropped to 2.4 million tons in 2014 from 3.3 millions tons in 2013.

“I don’t discount market forces, but if all the proposed regulations go through, there are going to be more cuts,” Colorado Mining Association president Stuart Sanderson said.

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